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THE MERCHANT OF VENICE

Fred and I went to see the new production of The Merchant of Venice with Al Pacino, and heard Bassanio say "between you and I." I looked it up to make sure the line was read correctly, and found it in Act III:

[Bassanio reads] "Sweet Bassanio, my ships have all miscarried, my creditors grow cruel, my estate is very low, my bond to the Jew is forfeit; and since in paying it, it is impossible I should live, all debts are cleared between you and I, if I might but see you at my death."

So even then people were saying "between you and I" instead of "between you and me." Though Shakespeare put it in the mouth (or pen) of the gentleman Antonio, he undoubtedly understood the objective case, with his "little Latin." Then as now, you wouldn't say "between we," after all. Why do we want to pitch out the objective case when there is more than one object of a preposition? I've said it before and I'll say it again, I think it's because people think it's more formal or polite to say "I" than "me" because they're vaguely remembering the rule to put the other person (or pronoun) before oneself (as in "Let us go then, you and I") and mixing that up with the rule about the objective case, etc. And always have done so.

As for the movie, it was good and I recommend it. A local review was headlined, "It is what it is," meaning that modern audiences can't quite get around the anti-Semitism of the play. The director couldn't go so far as to apologize for Shakespeare, so he added bits at the beginning and end to give a nod to modern sensibilities. A note on the screen before the movie explained that in 16th century Venice, Jews were forbidden to own property (nor could they join the trade guilds); and were forced to live in ghettos (real ones, with real gates and locks); and lent money at interest because Christians then were forbidden to do so. At that time, "usury" meant any interest on a loan (now it means exorbitant interest). At the end of the movie, we see Shylock standing in the street as a number of other Jews enter and close the door of a building, possibly a synagogue, showing that he had cut himself off even from other Jews, thus we are to look at Shylock as an individual, not as EveryJew. Yet he is Everyman, insofar as we all may at times get caught in trying to live by the letter of the law rather than the spirit of the law.

Thus he is a tragic figure. He lived strictly by the law and fell by the law. A few years ago in Boston I went to hear a noted and venerable Talmudic legal scholar from Israel discuss the concept of justice. It was an intricate argument, replete with quotations from Hebrew, Latin, and Greek that I could not understand. What I remember as his main point is that since the law cannot cover every possible instance that might arise in life, so justice, or judgment, may and must interpolate mercy. A Talmudic scholar would know this precept from Micah 6: "And what does the Lord require of you, But to do justly, To love mercy, And to walk humbly with your God." Which Shylock could not and did not.

But when it comes to Shakespeare, we require impeccable grammar (except in the comic characters), and perfection of human understanding. This is why The Merchant of Venice is controversial: the history of the Jews in Europe we can't dispute, but we expect Shakespeare to rise above history. And if you read the text closely, perhaps he does, keeping in mind that he always played to the conventional understanding of his audience.

(By the way, when Dorothy Sayers mentions moneylenders in her Peter Wimsey mysteries, sometimes they are Jews but sometimes they are called Scottish. I wonder if the Scots were noted bankers and moneylenders, besides being famously cheap, or if this was some sort of joking code word for Jewish moneylender.)

SHAKESPEARE IN IRAQ

A grateful Iraqi in the U.S. who cast an absentee ballot in the Iraq election said he wasn't afraid because he can only die once. He said there is an Iraqi proverb, a brave man dies once, a coward dies 50 times. But Shakespeare wrote in Julius Caesar, Act V:

"Cowards die many times before their deaths;

The valiant never taste of death but once."

Somehow it's reassuring to know that the Iraqis have incorporated Shakespeare into their ethos, so much so that they forget where the words came from. Of course, it's possible that this saying was not original with Shakespeare. Perhaps this is another case (among many) where he rewrote what he heard or read.

REPORTBACK

An e-mail subject line was "Impeachment Reportback." Why invent this compound word? What would be wrong with plain old "Report"?

QUICK

I finished The Sunday Philosophy Club by Alexander McCall Smith, and found another interesting tidbit in it, where someone says no one knows anymore the old meaning of "quick," as in "the quick and the dead," meaning the live and the dead. Well, the young people don't know. In Scotland. Here, too, it's not used much in that sense anymore except in "quicksilver" (mercury) or biting your nails down to the quick (flesh), and occasionally one is cut to the quick emotionally. The Bible mentions judgment of the quick and the dead a couple of times, and it doesn't mean judgment of the speedy or clever. (By the way, anyone remember the band Quicksilver Messenger Service?)

TUBAL LOCUTIONS

>>> Carol Duvall: ". . . my unbounding gratitude." She meant "unbounded," of course, i.e. unlimited. I'd like to see "bounding gratitude," though, leaping and springing.

>>> A crime was reported on a bad thing that happened to someone who lived at Woodlawn Fieldstone at Glenwood Crossing Apartments. I've never run across such a string of fake ruralesque naming.

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I have a contribution in a new anthology about the "center of life", Changing Course: Women's Inspiring Stories of Menopause, Midlife, and Moving Forward, edited by Yitta Halberstam.

Copyright Rhonda Keith 2005. Parvum Opus or part of it may be reproduced only with permission, but it is permissible to forward the entire newsletter as long as the copyright remains.

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